Real Madrid Player Gives Back to Kids in Sierra Leone

One of the biggest stars in soccer making a difference far beyond the pitch Real Madrid standout and German national vice captain Antonio Ruediger bringing his foundation's mission to Washington DC with a gala that is supporting children and Sierra Leone alive with us now this morning is Patrick a camera president and treasurer of the Antonio Ruediger Foundation glad to have you here with us Patrick tell us a little bit more about the Antonio Ruediger Foundation what you all do in the mission behind it. Good morning thank you so much for having me. So it's been a hectic week first of all with the World Cup and with Antonio being here it's just been even crazier. Just love in D.C. and admiring this beautiful beautiful city. So with the foundation obviously we support education initiatives in Sierra Leone. We also support health care initiatives and of course sports development. So we work with partners such as we would collab with UNHCR which is a refugee agency that Antonio works with as well as well as organizations such as Street Child that also focus on education. So essentially we want to empower kids in Sierra Leone to sort of you know help with education and hopefully help with the health care initiatives in Sierra Leone. But above all we also partner with local initiatives around the area in D.C. promoting soccer around here. So hopefully with Antonio being here in D.C. hopefully we can we can have a good time out at the gala and promote soccer because I think what Antonio wants to do here in D.C. is to make sure that soccer isn't just something that kids in the suburbs get to enjoy. But it's something that every kid whether they're on one side of the Anacostia River or here in D.C. or anywhere within the DMV area that they all get to experience and love. Yeah. And we've seen that worldwide love across the globe when it comes to soccer really bringing so many people together. We've seen that firsthand with the World Cup this year. And I know for both you and Antonio there's a really deep connection to Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone it's personal for you all as well right. Absolutely. So our parents obviously from Sierra Leone I was actually born there. Antonio was born in Berlin. But obviously we grew up outside of Sierra Leone. But it's something that's deep for us because we go back to Sierra Leone and do a lot of initiatives and charity drives whether we're giving out soccer equipment or helping to promote education of donating tons of money to health causes. It's something that's really really deep and personal. And we just recently got about 400000 dollars worth of equipment from Under Armour. So a big thanks to Kevin. Kevin and the team at Under Armour as well as Flynn their head of philanthropy for just partnering with us. And they actually are one of the biggest sponsors for the gala that we'll be hosting tomorrow right here in D.C. actually at the Wolf. I can't quite give out the location just yet because I don't want it to be flooded. But if you got the invite list and you're on the list you'll know exactly where it's at. And again I would also love to extend that to you guys as well. And we can chat more about that. Fantastic. Yeah. You know like you said Antonio has been extremely busy. He himself playing in the World Cup of course Germany Paraguay in the round of 32. We've seen the support from some of his former teammates as well. Jude Bellingham as well as Killian Mbappe too. But I also know he plans you all with your organization here plans to create a football academy as part of like a longer term vision. Talk to me a little bit about that as you mentioned helping support the sport here of soccer. Yeah exactly. I think what we want to do is just basically open academy in Sierra Leone for both young men and young women. And that pretty much is to promote and give kids the opportunity to basically develop their soccer skills. And over time what we want to do is hopefully partner with organizations such as DC United and all the teams around the area to kind of basically create a feeder program where we can hopefully get kids from Sierra Leone and just sort of feed them into the system and hopefully just collaborate with other soccer stars both here in D.C. and around. And I think Tony has a pretty pretty large network of people. And I'm sure you can see some of the support from killing and some of the support from Jude. And it's been it's been incredible. And by the way hopefully we'll we'll we'll be seeing a few of those stars in D.C. tomorrow. So it's it should be it should be quite exciting. And they've all been quite supportive. They've all been quite supportive. And not just the soccer stars. I think we'll have some some additional celebrities as well and some amazing musicians which I can't quite say because I don't want to give away the surprise. But above all this is a fundraising event for kids. And we're hoping to get the support from the community. And if anyone wants to learn more about the Antoine Rudiger Foundation please go to Antoine Rudiger Foundation dot org. Or you can just visit us on any of the social medias on Instagram or follow us on LinkedIn as well. Awesome. Patrick thank you so much. I appreciate it. I'm going to go follow you guys as well just because now I'm curious to see who's going to show up. You really tease that one. And now I'm dying to know who's going to be there at the gala. Again I love when a passion comes together with a with a with a project like you all are doing there. Again thank you so much for joining us this morning. Best of efforts and your best of luck in your efforts there with your gala tomorrow. Thanks again for joining us on Good Day Marissa.